The West African Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) has warned that the region's digital economy — estimated to generate between $100bn and $150bn in annual economic activity — is at serious risk due to fragile submarine cable infrastructure. WATRA's Executive Secretary Aliyu Aboki cited a March 2024 incident in which multiple undersea cables serving the West African coast were disrupted simultaneously, cutting internet traffic in affected countries by more than 50% in some cases, slowing banking systems, and causing widespread outages for cloud-dependent businesses, with repairs taking several days. Aboki stressed that the problem is not a lack of capacity but a lack of resilience, calling for submarine cable infrastructure to be treated as a regional public good and for coordinated policy frameworks to ensure that future investment is durable and financially sustainable.